Change Your Focus

Psalm 105:1-3

"Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done. Sing to him; yes, sing his praises. Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds. Exult in his holy name; rejoice, you who worship the Lord." (NLT)

Sometimes it seems like everywhere you look all you see are problems, strife, turmoil, hurt--all around the world, in our own country, in our community, in our homes...in us.

Why is it that our focus is naturally drawn to all these negative things? We start by worrying, then we get angry, frustrated, and if we leave our focus there, we end up losing hope.

I think we need to change our focus. We have a God who loves us unconditionally and cares about everything that concerns us. Jesus gave His life that we might have the hope of eternity with Him. And the Holy Spirit was given to comfort, guide, and teach us about God’s plan and His love towards us in every circumstance we face.

The bottom line--God is greater than any problem or circumstance.

That's exactly what we need to focus on every day but even more when we are overwhelmed or depressed. We need to change our focus. We need to thank the Lord and tell of His greatness. We need to let the whole world know what He has done. To sing praises to Him. To worship Him and rejoice. When you do this, your circumstances might not change...but you will.

Rhythm

This post is based on notes from a sermon by Matt Chandler:

Genesis 1 was written in Hebrew to read like a poem. It has rhythm to it:

“God created this, then He created this, and it was good….”

“God created this, then He created this, and it was good….”

“God created this, then He created this, and it was good….”

I believe it was written that way because it's describing how God has woven within the fabric of the universe this rhythm, this beat, this grove that is behind everything. It flows through everything. It is the rhythm that all of the universe operates in and under:

-every day turns into night
-every night turns into morning
-fall turns into winter
-the lifecycle of a plant
-the rotation of the earth
-it’s trip around the sun, etc.

So, there’s this rhythm (beat, grove, flow) going on all the time. In other words, God designed the universe and everything in it to work a certain way - including us.

Most people think that God is this cosmic killjoy who hates fun and wants to keep us from enjoying ourselves. But it’s the complete opposite! God created everything and said it was good, but He created it to work a certain way. And He created us to operate and live within it a certain way.

We’ve got to understand this, because all throughout the bible God is begging us to enter into this rhythm and design. In the book of Proverbs it's personified as wisdom in the form of a woman screaming in the streets saying something like, "How long are you going to keep trying to do this contrary to how this was designed to function. If you would just listen to me, I would show you how this is supposed to work in such a way that the joy that you are seeking would be found in it." (Proverbs 8; 16:25).

God is in no way glorified by our begrudging submission to Him. He doesn't want to snuff out our joy by forcing us to follow a bunch of rules. He wants to maximize our joy by leading us back in line with the way He created things to be.